Dinners

Annual, Celebratory, and Members’ Dinners:

Members’ Dinners have in recent years become popular, combining an interesting speaker and dinner at one of the Pall Mall Clubs, they are attended by around ninety Members.

Sir Brian Unwin, a former British diplomat, senior civil servant and for seven years President of the European Investment Bank on “Does Brexit mean Breaxit?”; the fifth Members’ Dinner on Friday 18 November 2016 at the Reform Club, Pall Mall, London.

No Members’ Dinner was held in 2015, instead the 95th Anniversary was celebrated at Grocers’ Hall with H.E. the Netherlands’ Ambassador, Mr Simon J.H. Smit as speaker.

H.E. Sir Geoffrey Adams, the British Ambassador to the Netherlands, spoke on “The Netherlands and the United Kingdom : the bilateral relationship and our common interest” at the fourth Members’ Dinner ; Friday 14 November 2014 at the Reform Club, Pall Mall, London.

Prominent Lecturers

“Moor Park in 1944: Browning, Overlord and Market Garden“ was the subject of the fifth Arnhem Lecture, organised by Heleen M-S, at Moor Park Golf Club.

For those who passed up the opportunity to play a round of golf on one of the finest courses near the capital, the evening commenced at 6.30pm with a drinks reception, followed by the lecture in the Arnhem Room; at 8.15pm dinner in the Dining Room, and finished with musical entertainment.

Third Arnhem Lecture, “Beyond a Bridge Too Far”, by Professor Reinier Salverda, Director of the Frisian Academy in Leeuwarden (a research institute of the KNAW, the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences). Born in Arnhem, Reinier’s subject included growing up in Arnhem after the war, the Battle of Arnhem, and its impact on civilians.

Arnhem Lecture – by Laurie Milner, historian, of the Imperial War Museum, and a three-course dinner afterwards. The event included a round of golf in the afternoon. It was here at Moor Park Golf Club that Operation Market Garden (the 1944 attempt to capture bridges across the three wide Dutch rivers) was planned in what is now appropriately called the Arnhem Room.

“Britain and Europe – what’s the problem?” – by Chris Patten, organised by the joint UK-EU Societies at the Royal Geographical Society, followed by a reception. Thursday evening event, open to members only.

The Rt Hon. Peter Hain MP, Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, organised by the joint UK-EU Societies.

Receptions

Evening Reception aimed to bring together Children of members of the Society and others who are‘Young at Heart’. On a Thursday evening in April 2006, in H.E. the Netherlands’ Ambasador’s residence

Reception at, and Tour of, the House of Lords, to celebrate the 85th Anniversary of the Anglo-Netherlands Society. On a Friday evening, in May 2005.

Royal Reception on the occasion of the Golden Jubilee of the Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, with other ‘Anglo-European’ Societies, in March 2003.